


Thoughts of a dying atheist

by jaydenmaeda



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Shrek (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Drunk Sex, Drunk Texting, Eventual Loss of Virginity, Gay Sex, High School AU, Love, M/M, Mutual Pining, Oral Sex, Pregnancy, Rim job, Romance, Sexuality Crisis, Slow Burn, Soulmates, Young Love, add me on minecraft
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2020-08-10 11:21:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20134621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaydenmaeda/pseuds/jaydenmaeda
Summary: Ben has never been in love before- and, well, to be completely honest, he's never really had any friends before either. When a new transfer student begins attending the same classes as him, his life takes a significantly positive turn. But, here's the thing: this transfer student is another guy, and Ben isn't gay. It goes against everything he believes in. Plus, he's pretty sure he likes women. So why: why do his heart, his body and his soul yearn to be closer to this guy?





	1. Genesis

Ben sighed dejectedly at the sight of his poignant calculus results. Sure, he hadn’t gone out of his way to attempt any extracurricular homework or anything along those lines, but did that really warrant such a pathetic score? 

He was, in his own understanding, exceptionally gifted in most areas of academia. With a consistent 4.0 GPA, a lot of his teachers held him in very high regard. But that would surely change. No one, including himself, would be capable of overlooking this terrible score. 

Forty percent. Less than forty fucking percent. 

Though the anger blinded him initially, frustration had excreted even more powerful feelings of dread and hopelessness within the expansive, swollen canopies of his mind. School was the only thing that validated his own image of self-worth. 

He could handle the weird looks, the malicious whispers, the jeers and taunts about his pathetic stature- even the swirlies, which occurred every Tuesday after gym practice. It wasn’t like he could make them stop. He was always sweaty and exhausted, his body too flaccid to even attempt to fight back. His memory was tainted with the wrathful whispers of his most dreaded sonata- toilet Tuesday.    
  


…...   
_ “You like that, Shapiro? You like the taste of that shitty toilet water, you little phagocyte?”  _ N-no, I don’t lik-  _ “Look at him, he likes being drowned in toilet water!”  _ No, stop-  _ “What a fucking manlet!”  _ Let me g-  _ “Pull him out so I can drag my nuts all over his face. They’re sweaty from practice, too!”  _ B-Brandon! No!!! Stop, PLEASE-

……

  
  


Maybe, in some fucked up, sadistic way, Ben deserved all of this. After all, it was his own fault for performing so badly on that test. He couldn’t hide behind the actions of others. No, that line of thinking was reserved for the liberals. 

But maybe; just maybe- the endless harassment HAD impacted his results…? Or not. He knew, deep down, that the logical fallacies within that argument were much too vast to ignore. 

Still in math class, Ben fought the urge to crumple his results violently until the writing obscured within was fully incomprehensible. He didn’t want to be alive. All of the brutality he had endured at that public school was utterly deplorable, and it made him feel like the scummiest piece of shit on planet earth. But it was nothing compared to his feelings of failure. 

Straightening his kippah, he heaved a sigh of resignation. The bitterness inside of his heart had yawned, revealing a barren, pulsating cave. He needed to calm down. 

His mind instantly went to his beloved copy of the Tanakh.

God created all of this. With his benevolent hands, he governed the creation of the ground beneath our feet, and the various elements of our atmosphere; so that we can facilitate gas exchange within our internal environment. He breathed life into all species of vegetation, the vast expanses of separated water bodies, and the gametes in our testes so that we can have sex, fuck, repopulate, or just thrust into the closest thing that moves. Even if that ‘thing’ is your own hand. 

He was responsible for everything known to mankind. Ben didn’t have any physical or historical evidence to prove any of this, but he felt as though that didn’t matter because he wasn’t a feminist pushing for the legalisation of abortion- he was just a teenage boy actively expressing his belief in something he had no proof of. Very different from a libtard trying to ask for equal rights or other stupid shit like that. 

He was rudely thrust back into reality at the expense of his teacher, who was notorious for his ability to command attention from miles away (the fucker had a loud voice and didn’t know how to shut his fat lips.) “Sorry, class! I completely forgot- please give a warm welcome to our transfer student when he arrives!”

Ben rolled his eyes. As if his class wasn’t large enough already. There was barely enough room between the desks, no foot space, limited air to breathe, and it fucking stank most of the time. As he listlessly allowed his gaze to lick each wall of the classroom, grimacing at the forgettable faces which peered back unenthusiastically, he wondered why he was even there in the first place. He deserved so much more than this. 

Rudely awakened once more, his head was swept out by the roaring gust of reality. A rhythmic lull of external throbbing, no, something pulsating. It was as though he was being nurtured within the forgiving walls of his mother's womb once more, his body enveloped by the passionate hue of maroon, vermillion and scarlet. Oh, to be a zygote. For there was no greater place of pleasure outside of the womb, and it was morbidly similar to the garden of Eden. Much like the low hanging fruit of temptation, an array of plump organs glittered with temptation. And such variety, too! Colon, jejunum, appendix, small intestine- many pieces of flesh to squeeze and tug until fluids burst out in spurts of ecstasy!  _ ‘How cute,’ _ Ben thought. 

Though, unfortunately, unlike the forbidden tree of Eden, eviscerating the organs of another human being would not necessarily entail the eternal wisdom of good and evil. Or perhaps it did?! Many questions plagued humankind from the soil upwards. 

When you really, truly think about it, God created the earth in a mere seven days, so there were bound to be imperfections somewhere. Imperfections; much like the catastrophically loud footsteps which racked his senses.

Although irritated, Ben shuddered at the now violent sound of thumping which emanated from the corridors. What kind of human was large enough to produce footsteps of such volume?! _ _

_ ‘It’s probably an obese lesbian,’  _ he thought to himself, becoming overwhelmingly depressed at the prospect of this idea. 

But then, when it seemed as though the sound couldn’t possibly grow any louder, the door was knocked on three times, and from the doorframe emerged the most magnificent organism Ben had ever seen in his life.

“H-hey,” he murmured, his voice deep and raspy, “Where can I sit?”

Gasps and confused whispers swept the classroom in bursts- no, in waves, Ben himself among them. Something was wrong. There must have been a mistake.

The transfer student...He wasn’t your typical teenage boy, to say the least. 

Standing at roughly eight feet in height, he practically had to crawl in order to fit through the doorframe. That wasn’t the weird part. His skin, rough and calloused over the entirety of his body, was stained with the soft hue of wine and lilac. 

“Ah. You must be Thanos! Come, there’s a spare seat next to Benjamin, the young man right at the back. Yes, in the corner. That’s it.” When contrasted with the sheer volume of his body, his school bag seemed like a foreign insect crawling precariously between his shoulder blades. “Er… Could you all squeeze in a little, so our new young man can get to his seat?”

In these brief moments, he knew that God was real. Much like the alluring metaphor of the first humans, Ben felt as though he had been crafted from the rib of this dense, massive entity sitting directly beside him. Why else would he feel so drawn to him? 

He understood now. For years after hearing the story of Noah’s Ark for the first time, Ben had always, always wondered how a loving God could possibly feel the urge to destroy the creations He had moulded with his own hands, but he understood now. The human heart was intrinsically evil. The human body, though fully functioning and intact, was designed to destroy, to ravage, and to fuck. 

Ben shivered, feeling the familiar touch of God’s presence tingling throughout the ridges of his spine.  _ You understand now, don’t you, Ben? _ It seemed to whisper, all the while guiding his head towards the boy next to him.  _ Your skin, though modelled in the image of my own, could not be more fraudulent or decrepit. I can see everything inside of you, all of your past, your present, and your future.  _

_ ‘Yes,’ _ Ben thought to himself, his body tense and pale. He understood completely. If you have a criminal, you punish him. That’s an unsaid principle of our basic human understanding of justice. If your children misbehave, you allow them to recognize the prevalence of consequences. God was merely orchestrating this same sense of justice when he opened the floodgates of heaven.

We, humans, were cockroaches, really. We clawed onto life, to hope, to love, to anything that made us forget our mortality. But, it was as God said:  _ “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.”  _

Dust, huh. Ben glanced sideways, startling slightly as his eyes locked with the transfer student. Blue, or grey, he couldn’t really tell. Mesmerising. Their smouldering intensity caused his face to drown in heat, though he tried to console himself with a polite nod. After several pregnant moments, he was offered a relaxed smirk in response. 

The bell resounded. His last class was over.

_ Why was it so hard to stop looking into his eyes?  _


	2. Exodus

Transfer students were strange. Why did they have to transfer, anyway? Humans didn’t need to alter their geological placement, not with the positive social and structural reforms of society we have today. It was a vacuous cause, and Ben was adamant in his belief that everything had a place. 

Forget all of the historical inadequacies surrounding the Hebrew bible, disregard every proven instance of plagiarism, and make sure you forget God’s endorsement of slavery. None of that mattered, anyway. 

Once you pushed all of these minor details out of your mind, it was rather simple to bestow dire faith upon your benevolent saviour for all of the righteous lessons he delivered and continues to deliver to mankind. 

His hands were strategic, and his will was eternal. So everything had a place. Mayhem and idyllic balance could not coexist. Violence was a pawn of chaos, and chaos was the product of sin. 

Thanos had lost his place. He wasn’t supposed to be at the same high school as Ben, much less in the seat next to him. So why was he there? He fucking despised transfer students. 

Divorce was stupid. Moving to a different country was stupid. Reproduction was stupid. Why couldn’t people just be satisfied with what they already had? Was it really necessary for them to plague every cubic meter of the earth, shit in every nook and crevice, and vomit their feculent genetics into such a tired eclipse? 

Short answer: no, it wasn’t necessary. In fact, it was overtly inconvenient and dangerous to the natural order of planet earth. Humans were filthy, and we should have all perished when those floodgates were opened. 

Some of us were created in the image of God, and others… Well, there was only so much you could do for a libtard. If they had free healthcare, they’d just start complaining about something else, like how bad their shit stinks. There would be a political outcry for any movement, regardless of the evidence involved. 

As if on cue, his mother poked her head through the crevice of his doorway, pushing her glasses along the bridge of her nose. “Benjamin! It’s time for dinner, my son!”

He fought the urge to flick a fat wad of snot in her general direction, deciding that compliance was easier for both of them. “Coming, ima!”

His mother and father were strict, but Ben personally enjoyed the discipline as it kept him in his place. From the outside, looking in, he knew the impression he gave to an average bystander: just another Jewish boy, set on his metamorphoses into a rapacious mess like the men before him. The anti-semitism was just another factor of his daily life, though knowing it was normal didn’t make it any easier. 

None of that really mattered, though. He knew that he would be irrevocably fucked up no matter what religion or race he was born into, and no amount of discipline could stop the insatiable malevolence which swarmed his body.

Sometimes Ben wondered if God was malevolent. He had, on numerous occasions, orchestrated fear from his own creations. If he was capable of anger and contentedness, surely he was capable of acting in immoral ways? After all, we humans were driven solely by our emotions. 

When the Israelites were enslaved at the hands of the Egyptians, several handmaids attempted to save the lives of the abandoned Israeli sons. God rewarded them, not on the basis of their morality, but because they feared him. And what was their reward for risking their own lives? A family. Last time Ben checked, families were produced because a man and a woman rubbed their grimy bodies together like slugs in a drainpipe, but that didn’t matter. The scripture was always right. 

Unravelling his slender frame from the sheets of his bed, he headed towards the dining room. The beige wool beneath his feet beamed luxuriously beneath mellow lights. Wriggling his toes in anticipation, he shivered as tufts of carpet stimulated the skin of his feet. Familiar beams of dark cedar interjected around the fireplace, which emanated a benign aura of warmth, intertwining with the tempting scent of shakshouka. 

His seat at the table was as rigid as ever. Smoothing over the indents with a tentative finger, Ben contemplated just how many kilograms of table he would need to macerate all of the bones in his tragic little body. 

Though the idea made him ecstatic, it all depended on the height from which the table was dropped rather than the actual mass. He wouldn’t want it to kill him, though. Something along the lines of temporary paralysis, or bowel obstruction, or a punctured lung- any disease, ailment or sickness. If only to make him feel something. 

“Benjamin! Listen to your ima. It is time for grace!”

Shaking his head slightly with resignation, he nodded and interlocked his hands with his mother and father.

“ Barukh ata Adonai Eloheinu, Melekh ha'olam, bo're minei m'zonot.”

He glanced languidly at the contents of his plate, and his heart pulsated violently for reasons he could not comprehend. A generous helping of shakshouka was complimented by shredded cabbage and sliced aubergine, steam folding and curling in wisps of ivory. Though the smell was mouth-watering, bile rose precariously in his throat. Something felt wrong.

The cabbage...Was moist. Succulent. Tempting. 

...And purple. 

Iridescent light illuminated the rich variety of shades, casting emphasis on the mulberry, sangria, and rasin hue of each shrivelled piece. Ben was hasty to dispute his nausea, but it only rose to a crescendo as he directed his attention to the wilted aubergine. 

Who cared about the colour purple, anyway? What did it matter? He wasn’t going to get ‘triggered’ over a piece of fucking food. But even so, despite the internal coaching, the anxiety gnawing inside of his throat would not subside. 

Purple...Was a repulsive colour. A crude mixture of two individually flawless hues. It was a cop-out. 

Blue was patience. God lovingly crafted the sea and the sky in order to bring balance to this corrupt world. Foaming waves of azure, Egyptian and Prussian blue cascade violently at his whim, colliding conspicuously with the warm hues of the heavens. 

Interlacing the complex depths of cerulean with an obnoxious shade of red was an unforgivable crime, especially when the end result was purple. 

Not that it mattered, nor was it at all related to his disdain for the colour purple, but he couldn’t help but question why Thanos was even at his school in the first place. 

Why was he eight feet tall? Why did he have no hair? Was it genetic, or did he just shave it off? What size were his feet? How did he find shoes big enough to accommodate the girth of his toes? Did he need a special toilet, or did he just squat over the bowl when he needed to take a shit, lest he shatter the porcelain? When considering the size of his entire body, how big would his...

_ ‘Wait,’ _ he thought, swallowing; with a touch of insecurity.  _ ‘Why do I care?’  _ Ben shook his head, straining to erase the sinister thoughts that ebbed and flowed within his mind. 

Using his fork to herd the vegetables around as though they were disobedient farm animals, Ben wondered if Thanos was circumcised. He contemplated if he was religious- what kind of parents he had, if he had any parents at all. And then, on a darker note, Ben wondered...If Thanos was a leftie. 

The image was enough to send him over the edge. Sure, he had been close to bursting minutes prior, gazing down into the mouth of that whimsical cave- he just hadn’t anticipated the possibility of actually falling in. He could do nothing to stop the waves of vomit that flowed from his open mouth. The contractions of his diaphragm matched the pace of his heart, which thudded erratically.

He heard his mother’s startled cry, but he was too overwhelmed to compute the words coming out of her mouth. “B-Benjamin?! Are you okay?!”

We humans came from dust. But what was dust, really?

When put under a microscope, we can discern that dust is comprised of a myriad of different elements. Namely soil minerals, human skin and hair, plant pollen, natural fibres, and even burnt meteorite particles. The vomit which stained his clothes surely contained the same elements as this ‘dust’, right? And, if everything on this earth was once dust, then the slur of brown liquid on his lap, which was adorned with soft chunks, must have come directly from God. 

He wondered if, perhaps, these were the same dust particles which existed inside of Moses’ sacrificial offerings for the Tabernacle. If not the Ark crafted from acacia, maybe it was the Table adorned with gold rings, or the Lampstand with blossoming branches. 

As the waves dissipated into droplets, Ben felt the familiar tug of embarrassment clawing through his intestines like some kind of virus.

“S-sorry, ima. I guess I’m not feeling well.” He excused himself awkwardly, grimacing as droplets of filth stained the luxurious carpet.

The urge to beat the everloving shit out of himself was so powerful that his wrists started trembling. 

. . .

Sleep was irretrievable that night. 

His bedsheets were like slates of ice against the flushed skin that layered his body, and darkness wreathed around his bones as tightly as the guilt that strangled his throat.

Once, he truly believed that there was beauty in solitude. Beauty in preserving one’s dialectic, expressions, and even the soul. 

When you seal yourself away from the rest of humanity, you essentially protect more than your own image, because there is no one who can hurt you. We humans, flawed and riddled with toxins, cannot possibly coexist without deceit, violence or self-destruction. 

Ben understood all of this. With vitriolic thoughts swimming throughout the supple folds of his brain, he was powerless to stop the whimper which escaped his throat. 

Solitude. 

There was no moral purpose behind it. In fact, there was no purpose at all. But there was a philosophically piquant degree of satisfaction in being perfectly, wistfully alone for the eternity which God grants you.

But maybe there were some benefits to having friends. That’s what he told himself, anyway. 

Despite the anguish and pain of his inner turmoil, Ben opened his laptop. He had seven assessments due at the end of the week between each of his classes, none of which he had completed. The least he could do was check his emails. 

His inbox was almost entirely barren. Upon receiving a message from his calculus teacher, he began gritting his teeth nervously.

_ “Hello Benjamin, I have uploaded your extracurricular material for mathematics. It is very unlike you to achieve less than a 98 on a topic test. I’m always here if you need extra tuition. _

_ Oh, by the way, I have put Thanos next to you for a reason. He was the top academic male at his previous high school, and I think it would be excellent to see the two of you getting along. I may even raise your grade if you make an effort to make him feel welcome! See you in class tomorrow, Benjamin!” _

A better grade, huh? He scoffed. As if there was any other human- or any organism for that matter, who could possibly outmatch his intellect. The very idea was absurd, and his teacher must have been aware of that. He must have known how pissed off it made Ben, and in his diminutive teacher brain, he probably thought it would make him feel driven to accept such a hasty proposition. 

But he was wrong. 

...Ben decided he  _ would _ befriend Thanos, but only to increase his grade. That was it. There were no ulterior motives or any other reasons to associate with that freak of nature, he just wanted to maintain the GPA he had worked so hard for. 

Nothing more. 


	3. Leviticus

Why did school have to start so fucking early? 

Ben rubbed his eyes, which were dry and crusted over with exhaustion. Sleep had merely licked his consciousness. His head was starving, ravenous, and yearning for inactivity.

Though, in all honesty, he really didn’t have to show up so early. He just felt indescribable gratification from being one step ahead of everyone else in his class. 

Sitting alone as the only student in a barren, stoic classroom- it was somewhat empowering. The air was so empty. There was no moon to lull him into the iniquitous temptation of melancholy, and no sun to cast judgemental light on the imperfections inside of his body.

But on other occasions, he wasn’t as fortunate. Having your own head thrust into the unforgiving depths of a toilet bowl wasn’t pleasant, but it did invoke piety. Sweet, mournful, tremendous reverence. 

Baptism was a Christian practice, but Judaism possessed an almost identical form of ritualistic purification. 

‘Tvilah’ features a mikveh which is used for full body immersion in water. Similar to a bathtub, a mikveh generally includes a staircase submerged in water. So perhaps it was comparable to a swimming pool in most respects.

And though his body was never fully submerged on Toilet Tuesdays, the water that ingested his head certainly felt engaging enough. It didn’t matter if the water wasn’t clean. In fact, it didn’t even matter if he had contracted a malicious strain of escherichia coli bacteria. Science was of no interest to him, much less the hoax of medicine.

Who gave a shit about bacteria, anyway? In the book of Matthew, Jesus explicitly disagreed with the practice of hand-washing before food consumption. The human vessel of God himself advocated for the worldwide propagation of bacteria, so why wouldn’t mankind embody the same divine eloquence? 

Having near-death experiences every week was exhausting at times, but Ben tried to push it out of his mind. Nothing mattered anyway. If God wanted him to live, God would let him live. If God wanted him to die, God would have him meet his end. 

It was really that simple. 

Still in the midst of his internal dialogue, Ben was reluctant to acknowledge the knock at the classroom door. Why were other people alive on earth in the same timeline as him?

His calculus and homeroom teacher, Mr Jordan Peterson, had given Ben a key to the class after the first few weeks of school. With no friends and no apparent desire for senseless destruction, Mr Jordan Peterson decided that Ben emulated enough maturity to temporarily own a key. All things aside, it did make him feel superior to everyone else in his class. 

But it also meant that he was responsible for opening the ‘fence’ for these farm animals. Sighing, he trudged towards the door. 

Milliseconds after his hand fleeted from the handle, he was swept off his feet. A chaotic bustle of purple had latched onto his frail body with impeccable force- and an apologetic grunt.

Wincing, he gazed upwards. A pair of gentle eyes squinted back at him, seeming equally confused. A passionate hue surrounded each iris, subsisting of blue- no, grey… He couldn’t really tell. 

Several pregnant moments passed as the two acknowledged one another. Ben couldn’t remember the last time he had been so physically close to another organism. Had he ever?

“Bruh, I am so sorry.” After a painfully beautiful silence, Thanos pulled himself away instantaneously and struggled to get back to his feet. But when he did, he extended a large hand, nodding at the pathetic limbs on Ben’s own body. “You need help getting off that floor?”

Swallowing, Ben nodded. He wasn’t sure what to say. Or how to say anything, for that matter. His throat had crystallised somehow, dry and barren, just like libtard coochie. 

“I really am sorry. It’s just so hard to get used to the size of these buildings! I forget I need to get on my knees to fit inside of the doors. It’s a fucking nuisance, but it isn’t like I can just shrink myself down or anything.” His eyes glazed over slightly after he uttered his last sentence, thin lips mouthing the word ‘antman.’ Ben was oblivious to what that meant, but he was positive he could see his left eye twitching. 

“Er… It’s alright. It was just an accident.” 

Why did his voice sound so weak? It wasn’t as though he had been squashed at all. If he had been, he wouldn’t still be alive. That guy had to be at least seven hundred pounds. 

Standing next to him was beyond unnerving. Ben glanced upwards nervously, his eyes colliding with the cosmic parabola of that wide chin; marred with parallel indents. 

“Hey, uh…” he rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, “Would I be able to hang out with you at lunch? It’s just that this school is huge, all the corridors look the same, and I don’t know anybody else.” 

“If you want. But I go to the music room at lunchtime. You might find that kind of thing boring.”   
  
“I don’t find it boring.”   
  
“That's great then.”

. . . 

Four classes later, the bell resounded for lunchtime. It certainly was a much-needed break.

Sure enough, he and Thanos met up together, and there was a pleasant absence of that awkwardness Ben normally felt in the company of other human beings. 

Many blossoming fruit trees accompanied Ben on his walk to the music room, and he hummed wistfully, allowing himself to bask in the aromatic wisp of spring. Birdsong flitted between himself and Thanos, who trudged at an agonizingly slow pace behind him. 

“It’s right through here,” Ben muttered, nodding towards a downcast studio. This high school didn’t exactly specialise in the arts, much less in music, and so Ben was one of the few students who actually used this room. 

“Well, they must have a high budget!” Thanos laughed sarcastically, whistling for comedic effect. Ben rolled his eyes at this. “Good luck getting through the door.”

“Do you know anything about music?”    
  
“When I was younger, I did want to play the piano. But my fingers were always too big.” He articulated himself by spreading his robust, purple hands as he squirmed underneath the doorframe.   
  
“Oh. That’s pretty sad.” Some things just weren’t meant to be, he supposed. “I’m going to play _ Chaconne _ in G minor. Ever heard of it?”   
  
“It sounds familiar.”

For Ben, music was a translucent gateway into heaven. With his bow he carved the intricacies of God’s playground and the pious bodies it placated. Despite the negative connotations surrounding angelic entities in rabbinic literature, Ben personally believed that angels were the messengers of God. 

They were also crucial in understanding the content of God’s own character. Though they were crafted in his divine image, they were still prone to temptation and sin, still wrathful, jaundiced, lascivious and wolfish. 

Comprised of non-organic matter, angels still harboured a fleshly appearance. Both modern and post-modern depictions of these divine messengers shared a parallel analogy: they were strikingly human-like. 

Manipulating the bow so that it wavered to produce an introspective and sensuous expression, he lamented on the structure of those wings he lacked.

Swelling feathers of umber and ash, the pigment radiant and mellow beneath the harshness of natural light. Mesmerising beauty connected throughout an intricate bone structure- the coracoid for mobility, radius and ulna allowing the functionality and balance of flight. 

The space between his shoulder blades felt empty, agonizingly so. If only his soul was virtuous enough for the Lord he loved so dearly.

But it wasn’t.

Plucked from his existential lamentation, he was able to acknowledge the sincerity in those thoughtful eyes which stared at the instrument in his arms. Thanos, though slumped on the floor absentmindedly, seemed captivated.

The neck and bout were comprised of quarter-sawn spruce, whereas the internal components subsisted of varnished willow. His father had given this violin to him when he was a young boy. 

But it was rather old, and so the strings were worn out. Replacing them was the simplest solution. He was offered tin-plated carbon steel strings as they were the easiest to work with for beginners, but Ben was fussy even at a young age and settled for sheep-gut strings instead. 

The sound itself was subdued and melancholic, but startingly personal. At each concerto he had played, the feedback he received was consistent: it was beyond touching, as though the strings truly felt pain. And for a brief period of time, they did. 

Maybe that was the reason why the sound was so haunting, so captivating. His fingers and bow were massaging the cells of rotted sheep intestines, and although Ben knew they had been purified, they were once a part of a fully functioning organism- one of God’s creations. 

Would He have any feelings of resentment towards Ben for this? After much debilitation, Ben decided that He probably wouldn’t care that much. After all, God endorsed and even encouraged the massacre of millions of men. He oversaw global destruction on a daily basis. 

Then there were the sacrificial rituals performed in order to please God both before and after the birth of Christ. The whole practice served one cause: to purify the human body of sin. And so men were required to spiritually bestow a part of themselves into an animal, and to envision the loss of their own life as they drove their knives into the throat of a lamb or bull. 

The erasure of sin was proven to God through the blood which stained their hands. It was morbid, perverse and immoral, but not in the eyes of the Lord, who received pleasure from the entire ordeal.

As he sustained a particularly haunting note, Ben questioned the moral capacity of God. Was suffering subjective? Many of His violent actions were incited by His own incessant vexation, for God truly was waspish in nature. He believed that His own principles for mankind were perfect, and straying from those expectations was an offence to His superiority. 

But if we  _ were _ created perfect, then how could we, such lowly organisms, overpower the will of God? How did we overwrite our own physical and psychological capabilities? Many point to the book of Genisis to answer this dilemma, but if God was all-knowing, He would have foreseen the devilry of that snake (his own creation) thus He had the option to stop the corruption of Eve. 

But he didn’t. 

And, as a result, humankind paid the ultimate price. We were born to suffer. Twisted at the hands of a megalomaniac who we were expected to worship, we committed atrocities and inflicted mephitic violence on all forms of life. These acts of defiance were, in Ben’s eyes, manifestations of panic. No man could hate God, because He created us in his own image. We  _ were _ him. We just didn’t know how to accept that. 

What else could it be?

And so, Ben breathed deeply as his  _ Chaconne _ came to an end. Tilting the violin from beneath his chin, he spared a glance in the direction of Thanos, who was still peering back with unguarded enthusiasm.  
  
  
“I’ve never seen someone play like that before. I had no idea you were so passionate.”  
  
  
Ben blinked nervously, shaking his head at the ridiculous proposition. “Passionate, really? Me?”  
  
  
“Yeah. I thought you were a logic kinda guy at first, but I can tell that isn’t true.” He pursed his lips, lost in thought. The longer they stared into each other's eyes, the deeper Ben was thrust into irretrievable depths. 

That feeling of benign praise, moulded with the warmth of companionship- it was mind-numbing. For the first time in his life, Ben felt… Safe. He felt like someone actually enjoyed his presence. 

“I’ve never had any friends,” he blurted out, hands shaking as he returned his violin to the cedar casing. “Kindergarten was a living hell. The other children would taunt me, rip the kippa from my head, and use it as a frisbee.” The words were flowing out at this point, and he was powerless to stop them.  
  
  
“Elementary school was even worse. I tried making friends, but the majority of the American population is Christian. Children are disgusting.” 

Tears streamed down his cheeks, which were dusted with a pink hue. “They see the shy Jewish boy who plays the violin, and they think he’s an easy target. So every lunchtime, they fart on his sandwiches, throw wads of wet toilet paper at his face, and hold him down against the tables while they slap his ass.”   
  
  
Too afraid to see his response, Ben couldn’t bring himself to look up at Thanos. Finally, finally, he had some common ground with another person, yet he had ruined everything.   
  
  
“S-sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”   
  
  
After contemplating suicide for multiple prolonged seconds, he was enveloped with warmth. The stiff, yet agile arms around him seemed to pulse with heat, the muscles protruding and moulding with his own.    
  
  
“There’s nothing wrong with you, Ben, and you didn’t deserve any of that.” His voice was laced with emotion and sincerity, his grip tightening more with each word. “You say you’ve never had friends before- but, hey, you do now! You have me. So you don’t need to cry anymore, man.”   
  
  
Nodding, still partially in shock, Ben complied. His heart glowed with sincere passion, though he was beyond reluctant to acknowledge that.   
  
  
God, the friend of many, would no longer be his main source of companionship. And Ben was fine with that.    
  
  



	4. Numbers

Ben wasn’t sure how to feel. The past few days of his life had been daunting. New, almost. The prospect of spontaneity made his heart thud, causing his skin to perspire aggressively and ooze with shame. 

Sweet, vacuous shame. 

His sigh intertwined with the exhalation of spring, air heavy with the scent of pollen and fruit. Walking to class wasn’t so bad. At least winter had ceased. Ben knew he wouldn’t miss that barren air with wind groping the youthful skin of his face and that piercing, stubborn cold that seeped into your flesh, bone-deep. 

He wondered what season Thanos enjoyed the most.

And then, abruptly, he discarded the thought from his mind. Why would he care? That dude meant nothing to him. And it wasn’t like he needed any friends- much less wanted them. These strange orchestrations of his mind served no purpose in the slightest.

But, in his defence, it was only 7.15 am. Walking to school an hour earlier than required was just one of his nasty habits that Ben had yet to acknowledge. 

And Thanos was just another guy. Neither of them owed each other anything. Humans were disgusting in that they yearned for warmth, regardless of the source it came from. Fingers yearned to hold. Eyes yearned to cry. Breasts yearned to touch other breasts. And nuts? Well... Ben would never seep to that level of desperation.

He couldn’t. 

Mired, he lamented over the blossoms which erupted from various fruit trees surrounding him. The way they flitted through the hazy air was mesmerising- lulling, almost. He should have been calm. And yet, he felt a deep and shameful sense of longing. 

Pink was a beautiful colour. It signified life, heat, infatuation, and, above all, it marred the flesh and ignited desire. But despite all of this, it wasn’t... Particularly vehement. 

Nor was it dark, or sybilline, or awe-inspiring. It was just pleasant. 

Maybe that was why, when he caught a glimpse of Thanos, his body illuminated by the silky beams of sunlight, Ben felt his heart falter. Purple was dark. Purple was sybilline. Purple was awe-inspiring.

Pink was infatuation. And Ben was shaking.

Blissfully unaware of his gaze, Thanos braved the crowded sidewalk with his chest bulging outwards. His shirt wasn’t particularly slutty, or whoreish, but the fabric enveloped his nipples perfectly. Ben licked his lips absentmindedly.

A gust of wind stirred the blossoms once more, enveloping Thanos in a warm, sweeping blanket. Ben froze. Encapsulated. Longing to touch the sight before him, lest it vanished and dissipated into nothing.

His physical form was listlessly Greek. His deltoids and biceps were so full that they appeared to be close to bursting, framed by the rugged complexion of his skin. Spring suited him, in some fucked up way. That eclipse of orchid and lavender, their bodies merging tenderly, as though it was a fervent embrace between lovers. 

It was mesmerising. 

Ben wasn’t an avid fan of colours- much less the colour  _ pink _ . But it was a much-welcomed break from the anguish and despair he felt inside. That familiar twinge of despondency that seemed to tug on each individual organ layered within his stomach, nestled lovingly between the creases and sopping wet folds of flesh, waiting to strike, to puncture his heart and send him reeling into a cataclysmic state of perturbation.

Suspended, he couldn’t breathe. The tightness in his throat burned sweetly, and for a brief, fleeting moment, he understood liberal rhetoric: he needed a safe space. 

The passion he felt inside was unlike anything he had ever experienced. There was his love for God, sure- but this was different. It was new. 

It wasn’t as though he was forced to love God. Although he was obligated, being of Jewish descent, Ben felt that his devotion to God was sincere and chaste. He admired the power and moral capacity that naturally accompanied a being of omnipotence.

But for some reason, that didn’t sound right.

God  _ was _ moral, right? All of the famine, pestilence and death he had inflicted so mercilessly was enacted with a purpose, it wasn’t mere baseless violence...Right?

Ben couldn’t fathom it any other way. 

That man who unknowingly worked on the Sabbath, was he guilty? Did he deserve the torrent of violence which God so lovingly bestowed upon him? Tell me, did he deserve the stones, robust and brutal, hurled into his body without a second thought, merely because God commanded it?

Or perhaps the instance of gossip was more notable. For, when God heard the murmurings of a small cluster of Israelites involved in political feuds, He killed them all with a plague. Brutalised were their organs and their families.

But no one liked to talk about that.

Ben felt something stirring within his chest. Why was God so willing to intervene in such petty disputes, and yet, in the same breath, He overlooked the systemic suffering of entire populations for decades- no, centuries? 

Was there a possibility that God’s moral capacity...Was even less than that of humankind? 

Or was that idea a mere byproduct of our inferiority? 

Questions swirled inside of his head, sucked into the yawning drainpipe of his engorged mind.

Anxiety swelled inside of his larynx, prompting him to swallow tightly, knees shaking with fervour. He needed to get away. It didn’t matter where he went. Ben knew this, he felt the convulsions within his chest, the ebbing pain of muscular swelling inside of his lungs- his body and mind synchronized, screaming for him to leave, to run away.

His body moved robotically, as though each piece of sinew was hooked with string, commanding the way he walked, the placement of each muscle and their structure around the complexities of his bones. 

Yes, he realised, up until this point in time, he had glided through life with his feet above the ground, hopelessly and mercilessly controlled by the omnipotent fingers of God. Without freewill. Without conviction. 

A puppet to his own desires. 

He couldn’t stand the sight of Thanos, who stood sculpted by the pristine rays of sunlight. The feelings he invoked within Ben were not… Acceptable. They were abnormal.

And he needed to leave.

\-----

School had been listlessly uneventful. Classes went by quickly, tangled with the brimming warmth of spring. 

He had avoided Thanos, and desperately tried to remove his presence from the canopies of his mind. But his last class was ending, and his head was as clouded as ever.

Ben sighed, heaving his exhausted body out of the gym to change back into his normal clothes. Exercising wasn’t so bad, but being shorter than everyone else in a game of basketball didn’t exactly have its perks.

The boys’ bathroom smelt atrocious as per usual. Urine and the stench of musty nutsack had overlapped somehow, producing an aroma that prompted tears in the eyes of those unfortunate enough to smell it. 

He yearned to depart as soon as possible. Fully clothed, Ben turned towards the door, only to be shoved down mercilessly. Three boys towered above him, their frames threateningly stoic. 

Danny, the notorious delinquent and two other boys at the top of the food chain took turns at stepping on Ben’s frail body.

“Yo, Benjamin, you little kike. You know what day it is?” He smirked, wavy strands of blonde falling over his eyes.

Upon Ben’s pathetic whimper of ‘no,’ Danny blinked with amusement, mouth twitching into a crude smile. “It’s Tuesday.”

His heart faltered.

_ A-Aah… Toilet…… Tuesday…….. _

He had been so preoccupied with his thoughts of Thanos that he forgot about avoiding the gym before school ended.

\-----

_ Pain. Fear. Screaming. Silence. _

Thrust into cold depths. Retracted. Wetness. Palms shaking. Their faces, alight with the luminescence of cheap public school fixtures. Their smiles. His pain. 

It all moulded together, ever lucid and exquisite. Maybe this was his pathway to divine ascension. Maybe, just maybe, the rib from which Eve was crafted resided within him at that very moment.  _ ‘Ah, yes,’ _ he thought, ‘ _ God allowed my birth so that I may experience this.’ _

The laughter ringing in his ears was just another symptom of that first, everlasting mistake. He was a mere exemption of mankind’s greatest flaw: disobedience. Maybe this was his destiny.

He understood now. The many great plagues which swept those unfortunate men, and their wives, and their children- they were no different to the infectious water in which his face was submerged. 

He understood their pain. He felt it. The aftershocks of God’s vexation, his melancholy and disillusionment, it all swelled inside of his body, and he was merely a submissive vessel, willing to swallow the murky, churning blood that festered in the soil beneath this shitty public school. 

Every. Last. Drop.

But somehow, as though he was miraculously forgiven, his lips gasped air once more. Still sprawled on the ground with blood trickling from his nostrils, he spared a shaky glance around him. 

The sight was mosaic.

Danny’s face was clasped in one rotund, pulsating hand. Thanos stood with the glory of a classical warrior, his muscles illuminated beneath the harsh light. Another boy squirmed beneath the heel of his boot. 

“If you even think about touching him again, I will suck the marrow out you bones.”

Silk. Had his voice always been so glossy? Refined were his features, and the frown that dusted his brow. He merely grimaced as the three boys made their clumsy escape.

Stunned, Ben felt his lip quivering. “W-why….” He stuttered, heat prickling the corners of his eyes.

“This is getting old, Benjamin. What kind of friend would I be if I just stood around and watched?” Though his tone radiated seriousness, the softness in his eyes told Ben all he needed to know. 

For the first time in his life, someone had defended him. Someone cared. And, for some reason, they weren’t angry at the sight of his sopping wet hair, or the toilet water trickling precariously onto the tiled floor. He was even granted the offer of an extended hand.

It was warm and tender, and Ben shivered at the connection of their skin. Their callouses touched and intertwined pervasively, prompting a faint layer of pink to dust Ben’s face.

What was this feeling?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ithink; i have mental prolblems


End file.
